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Monday, 3 July 2017

To Newtown for coffee

Because I needed to buy coffee I decided earlier than usual this morning to walk to Newtown, and I went out the back of the building and up through Victoria Park. On King Street there was a man walking toward me wearing a black beanie with "Uni Pro" embroidered on the band. I went across Missenden Road and bought coffee at the Campos cafe then when I came out I walked down King Street, passing a restaurant offering diners outside butter chicken burgers. I went into the cafe next door to the cinema and sat down at a table at the back on the padded bench facing the room.

Opposite me sitting at a table were two elderly Anglo women and a man with brown skin. I ordered a flat white and later asked for a menu because I thought it might be interesting to try the food they served there. While I was reading posts on social media two young men sat down at the table next to me and immediately whipped out their smartphones. They started talking after a while and one said "Why did you have to remind me, man?" Later the other one would ask me if he could use the sugar that was on my table. I ordered a Caesar salad.

When I had finished eating I went out and turned back the way I had come. I had bought my coffee and had had lunch so there was nothing else to do and I could go home. Outside the cinema a woman was walking with two children, one of whom was gamboling on the footpath. "Is it starting?" he asked the woman, who I assumed was his mother. The three of them went into the cinema and I kept walking. I gave the change in my pocket to the beggar outside the supermarket. There is always a beggar there although it's not always the same person. Further up the road I passed a renovated building that two women walked out of. There was a vertical banner placed at the entrance, which was emblazoned with the word "Canteen". "Cancer's different in a young person's world," read the banner.

Down at the university I went into the Wentworth Building and used the ATM then went to the toilet. When I had come back to City Road I saw five cement mixers parked along the street. Inside the university grounds on the road at the back of the science building were five more cement mixers. The construction site where they are putting up a new building was very noisy. In Victoria Park as I approached Broadway I could hear a woman walking behind me because her shoes were noisy. I didn't turn around and imagined they were boots. She was talking in a Slavic language on her telephone.

I went down Broadway and turned left into Mountain Street, then walked up to Wattle Street by cutting through the petrol station. A petrol tanker was unloading fuel into underground tanks. It had the word "Toll" painted on the side. Across the street from Wentworth Park a City Ranger was booking the owner of a blue VW hatchback that was parked there. A crow was chasing another crow further up, near the railway viaduct. They crashed into the branches of a tree growing near the railway overpass as I walked along. I walked behind the Fish Market and as I crossed Miller Street into Saunders Street it started to rain lightly. I walked up the hill and was soon home.